Of Business Models and Best Practices

Posted on March 9, 2010 by dmaranville

My dean just forwarded the announcement below about a contest/series of conferences & working sessions hosted by NY and Harvard Law Schools over the next year to generate ideas about new business models for law schools and concrete steps to implement them.  Though the announcement focuses on “business models,”  the first sentence on the webpage link is “Got an idea about the future of U.S. legal education? Think it’s time to go clinical? Or global? Or virtual?”

What’s the relationship between our law school business models and best educational practices?  Unfortunately, the first session conflicts with the Minnesota Experiential Renaissance Roundtable on April 9 and 10, so I won’t be able to find out by attending the conference.  Look forward to getting the skinny from the rest of you!

“New York Law School – April 9-10

Harvard Law School – October 15-16

New York Law School and Harvard Law School are hosting a year-long contest of ideas about legal education. The goal is to come up with operational alternatives to the traditional law school business model and to identify concrete steps for the implementation of new designs. The kickoff event is a two-day conference for educators, employers, and regulators at New York Law School on April 9-10, 2010, to identify problems, innovations and constraints, and to organize working groups to develop designs and strategies for implementation. Working groups will refine their ideas and reconvene for a second meeting at Harvard Law School on October 15-16, 2010. Final designs will be presented, with commentary, at New York Law School in April, 2011.

Interested? Quesitons? Please visit http://www.nyls.edu/futureed”



Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Catalysts For Change | Leave a Comment »

Externship Conference: Responding to Changing Times

Posted on March 9, 2010 by nancymaurer

Externships 5:  Responding to Changing Times

I just returned from this excellent conference in Miami attended by over 150 externship faculty, deans, and administrators.  The Lextern list is buzzing with excitement about meeting the challenges of designing and teaching externships (or Field Placements, as we say in Albany) in changing times, and with praise for the conference planning committee and chair who organized a program rich with new ideas, methodologies, and resources.   

Thanks to conference planners Alex Scherr, Harriet Katz, Avis Sanders, Eden Harrington, Sande Buhai, Liz Ryan Cole, Robert Parker (am I leaving anyone out!?), host law schools, and conference chair, Jennifer Zawid for putting together such an informative, interesting, collaborative, challenging conference – and fun too! 

The Conference discussions, along with Carnegie and Best Practices, provides the externship community with many interesting and challenging questions issues to address, including: externships in the curriculum, designing educational outcomes in light of evolving ABA standards, increased pressures on externships as law schools and legal communities deal with the current economic downturn,  teaching ethics and professional identity in externships, etc. 

Here are a just a few highlights from the Conference to get the discussion started…

  1. There’s More Than One Way to Create a Great Externship Program

Choices regarding placement options, classes or seminars, program oversight, and training, are – or should be – a function of particular program goals and law school mission and should consider where the primary learning is expected to take place – (field and/or classroom). Avis Sanders and Eden Harrington led a panel discussion through the pros and cons of supervising attorney training, site visits, allowing placements at private firms and for-profit entities, general or subject specific classes, etc. Great food for thought for both established and new programs.

  1. ABA proposed standard 305

Alex Scherr led an open forum on the proposed elimination of interpretation 305-3 which currently prohibits law schools from granting credit to a student for participation in a field placement program for which the student receives compensation.  There is still time to comment on this proposal and it is important that we weigh in as this rule will have significant impact on externships. 

As some pointed out, this might assist students in tough economic times and we should still be able to control placement educational goals even if placements pay for student work.  A vocal majority, however, expressed concern about the prospect of allowing pay and credit.  For example, would field placements lose academic legitimacy if students get paid for credits?  Assuming that students would opt for placements that are able to pay, what would this mean for the majority of public service, public interest, government, not-for-profit placements?  If schools are unable to place students in public placements, might this undermine social justice goals?  There were concerns regarding pressure to send students to private placements and to give credit for already existing paid jobs – an additional administrative burden.   I hope others will weigh in.

  1. Status of externship faculty 

I was surprised to learn that while some externship teachers and program directors are tenured faculty or even academic deans, others, including leaders in legal education and experiential learning, are not considered “faculty” at their own institutions!   Does the lack of faculty status undermine the educational mission? Does it send the wrong message to students and placements that externships are not part of the academic program?  What do others think?   

The detailed program can be found on the co-sponsor University of Miami website

 http://www.law.miami.edu/events/externships/works.php, as well as on the Lextern web

 http://laworgs.cua.edu/lexternweb/index.htm.  I hope presenters will post materials on both sites.

Filed under: Best Practices & Externships | Leave a Comment »

Journal of Legal Education Calls for Third Year Curricular Reform Efforts

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Justin Myers

Our friends over at the  Journal of Legal Education are soliciting examples and articles that relate to Third-year curricular reform efforts.  The publishers are looking for information as simple as referrals to websites describing your innovations, or as polished as full journal articles.  Responses should be sent to jle@swlaw.edu.

Hey, and while your at it, why not post your Third-year curricular innovations to the Blog as well?  …Please.

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum | 1 Comment »

My Experiment with teaching Trusts and Estates, Outcomes-Style

Posted on March 1, 2010 by cbgrose

For the past two years, I have served on two distinct but related committees having to do with “the future of legal education.”  Here at William Mitchell, I am on the “Future of Legal Education Task Force,” in which capacity I contributed to writing a lengthy report on “Outcomes-based education,” portions of which have appeared on this blog in the past.  In addition, I am a member of the Best Practices Implementation committee, which is charged with figuring out ways to both implement the suggestions made in Best Practices for Legal Education, and to gather information about who is doing what innovations related to the book.  In other words, ideas about the design and delivery of legal instruction in new and more effective ways have been much on my mind over the past 24 months.

 I learned in the spring of 2009 that I would be teaching Trusts and Estates for the first time the following spring (ie right now!).  At that time, the Mitchell Task Force was finalizing its report, and the BPI Committee was finalizing its survey, and it occurred to me that I had a great opportunity here to put these ideas to the test. 

Instead of doing what I have always done when teaching a course for the first time – talk to a bunch of people about what books they use and what they do in their courses, get a bunch of syllabi, maybe some class notes, put together my own syllabus and then start planning my classes – I would start from the end point, ie I would ask myself:  what are my goals for this course? Or, put another way, what do I want my students to be able to do when they’re done with the course?  From there, I would work backwards, through assessment methods (what evidence will I need to know whether they have achieved these particular goals or outcomes?), to delivery of instruction (how do I put together a syllabus and class activities that will facilitate the students’ meeting of these goals?), and finally to evaluation.  That, simply put, is outcomes-based education.

I have been amazed at how satisfying this process has been.  From learning the material myself to designing assessment tools to deciding what to cover in each class, having the touchstone question of “what are my goals for this particular piece” has made each task manageable and a coherent part of the bigger puzzle.  I believe the course I ended up with, and am now half-way through teaching, is more thoughtful and interesting than it would have been if I had gone about planning and delivering it without thinking about goals and outcomes.  I certainly am having more fun teaching it; we’ll have to wait and see the student evaluations to see if the feeling is shared by the consumers!

Stay tuned . . . .

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices & Setting Goals, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques | Leave a Comment »

National Law Journal Covers Student Learning Outcomes Discussion

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Mary Lynch

LAW SCHOOLS
Holding schools accountable
ABA is pushing educators to prove their law graduates can cut it. by Karen Sloan

February 22, 2010

When 3,500 legal educators convened in New Orleans for the Association of American Law School’s annual meeting in January, one topic dominated the conversation: the American Bar Association’s attempts to add “student learning outcomes” to its accreditation standards.

One session on the issue drew 400 attendants, and debate spilled out into hallway conversations and cocktail hours throughout the five-day conference. At a deans-only meeting, top administrators expressed both support and worry about basing law schools’ accreditation on what students learn.

“If the ABA’s goal was to get people’s attention, it has worked,” said Reese Hansen, a professor at Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School and president of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS).

The buzz over Read more »

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Clinical Theory Workshop 25th Anniversary Celebration and Conference

Posted on February 22, 2010 by cbgrose

 Dear members and friends of the Clinical Theory Workshops:

             I’m happy to tell you that this year, 2010, marks the 25th anniversary of the Clinical Theory Workshop series. In honor of this birthday, I propose to throw a party – that is, to hold a conference – and I’m writing to invite you to participate.

             The theme of the conference follows from the nature of the occasion. We have been meeting to discuss works of clinical scholarship for a quarter-century, and along the way many of us have also written clinical scholarship ourselves. Our meetings have been fun; we are a community; but what have we discerned over the years? That’s the question for the conference. Put more formally, our theme will be: “Twenty-five years of clinical scholarship: What have we learned, and what should we work on next?”

             We will meet at New York Law School on Read more »

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Calling All “Contracts” Professors: What’s your favorite coursebook?

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Mary Lynch

As we have been implementing Best Practices and Carnegie reforms, many of us have created or have made creative use of  coursebooks which facilitate Best Practices learning and teaching.     One of my colleagues will be teaching Contracts for the first time this fall,  she has extensive practice experience and has excelled at clinical supervision and clinical pedagogy.   What suggestions does the Best Practices community have as to her selection of a coursebook? Have you identified focused learning goals and outcomes?  How have you provided formative assessment?  How have you assessed for grading purposes?  Do not hesitate to “toot your own horn” or in this case – your own book!

Filed under: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Lots of Great Stuff from CLEA — Check it out

Posted on February 15, 2010 by cbgrose

From Kim Connolly and Larry Spain:

The February, 2010 issue of the CLEA Newsletter has been published and posted on the CLEA website, http://www.cleaweb.org.  It can be found under the What’s Happening Tab. This will also give you an opportunity to explore the new CLEA website.  which we are calling 1.0 for now, because it is as promised a work in progress. Over the coming weeks we will be adding content, including a photo gallery with all of the photos you submitted (even if we don’t use them elsewhere in the site). We will still accept more photos, so send them in if you have them! 

After this visit, plan to come back and visit the site as we move forward to better serve our members and the clinical community through this new platform.

Have a great week, all…

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Best Practices for Legal Education in Monterrey, Mexico

Posted on February 14, 2010 by Antoinette Sedillo Lopez

The States in Mexico are, one by one, revising their criminal law and criminal procedure codes to change from an inquisitional, written system to an adversarial system with oral trials. Of course, this transformation is a major change in their legal culture. And, the law school leaders in Mexico understand that this shift requires that they change their approach to legal education. Lectures about legal doctrines made sense when lawyers were only called upon to prepare legal documents. Now that lawyers who represent criminal defendants will have to present opening arguments, direct examinations, cross examinations and closing arguments, law students need to develop different skills. I was very privileged to travel to Monterrey, Mexico with Professor Catherine Carpenter of Southwestern Law School to provide a training session about teaching to prepare students for the practice of law in an adversary system. The session was organized by Maestro Manuel Caloca at the Casa de la Cultura Juridica de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nacion (The House of Judicial Culture of the National Supreme Court).

This gave me a wonderful opportunity to talk about Best Practices for Legal Education. I pointed out that the whole book is available on line. As for our training, Catherine and I role played a Socratic class. She did a superb job of questioning me about a criminal case involving involuntary manslaughter. I tried to throw her a couple of curve balls, but she caught them and effectively tossed them back. She is an extremely engaging teacher in the best tradition of Best Practices and I was very pleased that she was the model of the Socratic Method. I then had the opportunity to talk about clinical legal education and skills training through use of simulations and in the tradition of leaning by doing, we used the case Catherine taught through the Socratic method to have them prepare a direct examination and a cross examination of the defendant. I was pleased to see how engaged and motivated they were. They had a lot of questions about teaching and it was obvious that they all care very much about teaching. One of the law teachers described how she used skits to get the students to learn about the adversary system and her students prepared videos of their skits that she can use to teach other students. I was also pleased to reconnect with a long time friend who is a professor at the University of Guanajuao, Juan Manuel Olvera. The mock trial team he coached from the University of Guanajuato recently won the national mock trial competition!

Catherine also presented her work as author of the ABA curriculum report and also some insights in her role as chair of the Accreditation Committee of the ABA. Of course, because Mexico’s legal education is a five year program after high school, the context is quite different, but the faculty was very interested in trends in legal education in the United States. And, that trend is actually consistent with Mexico’s reform: focusing on improving the preparation of law students for the practice of law.

We also met Luis Fernando Perez Hurtado who is the Director of a non-profit Center for the Study of Law Teaching and Learning (Centro de Estudios sobre la Ensenanza y el Aprendizaje del Derecho). His non –governmental organization’s mission is to improve legal education and he was very pleased to learn about the Best Practices for Legal Education. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is translated into Spanish. It is really exciting to think that the Best Practices “movement” might have a role in transforming legal education in Mexico. It will be intriguing to see how the adversary system develops in Mexico and how law schools change to prepare students for the change.

Filed under: Best Practices, Diversity & Social Justice, Catalysts For Change, International Initiatives and Models, Uncategorized | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Integrating Internet-Based and Teleconferencing Resources into On-Line Teaching

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Patty Salkin

Note: This is a continuing weblog describing my experiences teaching an on-line course in government ethics.

The on-line government ethics course this semester has already benefitted from a number of internet-based resources as well as teleconferencing.  With one of my early organizing goals to keep the “virtual class” as interactive as possible through the use of discussion boards and wikis available on TWEN, I also looked to see what other resources might be available on the Internet. To my surprise, there were a number of opportunities to integrate interactive ethics training into the course. 

For example, most state ethics agencies now offer on-line training for covered employees.  I contacted the NYS Commission on Public Integrity and they were agreeable to providing each of the students in the course with a user ID and password to enable students to take the Commission’s on-line training based on the ethics laws in New York.  This training was a wonderful introduction for the students to the types of issues typically covered in an ethics regulatory regime.  Another aspect of this on-line training was that at the end of each topical interval there was a quiz for participants to complete.  The entire training could take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours to complete, depending upon whether users go straight through the course, or take the opportunity to click on links to actual statutes, regulations and opinions that go into further detail on the particular subject matter being discussed.  I asked the students to evaluate this training experience when they concluded the program. Their reactions were interesting.  Almost everyone commented that the training was beneficial and a good introduction for government employees about the law.  Many students commented that they thought this on-line training was too basic, yet, a number of these students also admitted that they were surprised to have gotten a lot of the quiz questions wrong.  From this, several students observed how nuanced government ethics laws really are, and that the appropriate course of action when it comes to ethics is not always so obvious. This was an excellent teaching opportunity to point out how even people who are “trained” in the law can make mistakes, how individuals may not fully understand the application of the law to their actions, and why it is important to carefully read the statutes and regulations and to critically analyze the facts and the law. 

Early in the semester we studied the difficulties surrounding the question of attorney-client privilege in the government context.  As luck would have it, ALI-ABA was promoting a one-hour practitioner-oriented teleconference on the attorney-client privilege.  Although this was not focused exclusively on government law practice, I thought it would be a good opportunity for the students to get a fuller understanding of the practical issues involved in application of the privilege.  Perhaps because I frequently volunteer to teach ALI-ABA courses, I asked and was given permission for my students to participate in the course at no charge.  ALI-ABA sent each student a password to access the lunch-time program.  While many students commented that they wished the program had focused on the privilege in the government context, a lot of students wrote in their program evaluation to me that the course was interesting and they reflected on how it related to both what we studied in government ethics and what they discussed in their professional responsibility and evidence classes.  This proved to be another good experience and opportunity to weave together ethics and professionalism and evidence along the continuum of the overall law school educational experience. It was practice oriented and it also covered doctrinal subject matter tested on the bar exam.

Lastly, for fun, the federal Office of Government Ethics (OGE) offers interactive games to reinforce serious ethics subject matter.  I provided students a link in the weekly course materials folders to two of OGE’s interactive crossword puzzles where users can test their knowledge of federal ethics laws. While I didn’t specifically require the students to complete the crossword puzzles, I used it as an optional and alternative on-line teaching tool.

The above are just some of the examples of the various tools available to supplement a virtual classroom learning experience.  Although I have not used them yet, there are government ethics training videos available on You-Tube and other web-based sources, and a number of states post on-line the oral arguments before their high court, providing yet another great resource for many different subject areas.

Patty Salkin, Albany Law School

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices for Institutional Effectiveness, Technology | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »

BEST PRACTICES AND LAND USE LAW: a “natural” merger?

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Mary Lynch

A new article just posted to SSRN examines Best Practices in the field of land use law.  The article, “Practically Grounded: Convergence of Land Use Pedagogy and Best Practices” is forthcoming in the Journal of Legal Education. (One can downloand at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1540713). 

The authors (my colleague Dean Patricia Salkin from Albany Law School and Professor John Nolon from Pace Law School) are among the most prolific land use law scholars in the nation.  I am delighted that their current scholarship venture will add to the growing body of literature on Best Practices as it offers unique perspectives and ideas that we can all learn from.  Even though I have no experience in, nor have ever taught,  land use law,  I found the article contained lots of little gems and good ideas for those of us who teach in other subject areas or who are collaborating with colleagues on Best Practices initiatives.  

Salkin and Nolon’s  article begins with an examination of the changing dynamics in the field of land use and sustainable community development law, explaining how this provides a unique opportunity to rethink the way in which faculty prepare law students to practice law in this area. The authors explain how this paradigm shift converges with the growing momentum of the Best Practices movement, and observes that a “perfect storm” is present and a unique opportunity exists through the application of many “Best Practices” concepts for land use law faculty to lead the academy in reinventing curriculum and teaching strategies to better prepare students for the practice of law.

The article also reviews the history of the Best Practices movement, and makes the case as to why land use should be the “poster child” for best practices. This is followed by a discussion of an empirical survey conducted by the authors in 2008 of land use law professors that examined, among other things, the opportunities to apply Best Practices to the subject of land use law. The article offers innovative examples of teaching methods that can be effectively utilized within the confines of the traditional classroom, using the land use law course as a model, as well as an example of how the land use law course can be used across the curriculum as a Best Practices capstone experience.

 Again using the content of the land use course, the article concludes with the observation that the traditional approach to teaching can be converted into exciting opportunities that engage student learners, stretch the limits of student creativity, instill a sense of professionalism, and, consistent with the findings and recommendations of the Best Practices Report, prepare students to be more effective attorneys.

 The authors welcome and invite discussion of their article here among those of us interested in exploring Best Practices.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Updating Institutional Responses to Best Practices

Posted on February 2, 2010 by Mary Lynch

St. John’s U Law School Professor Gina Calabrese posted this query to the clinic listserv:  

“I’d like to hear from other clinicians whose schools are taking
steps to study and implement the Best Practices report.  What
is being done, what issues are being raised?” 

I think this would make a good public discussion.  We know that U of Dayton has created the “Lawyer as Problem Solver” Program (http://law.udayton.edu/prospectivestudents).  And,everyone has heard about Washington & Lee’s 3rd year reform. (http://law.wlu.edu/thirdyear).  

However, these schools are not the only ones engaged in change. Much energy and work and thinking and reform is occurring without fanfare or media attention – so here is your chance to share news about your school!

Let’s see if we can get at least 50 schools to report! I’ll start with ALBANY LAW: 

ALBANY - the Dean has established a Center for Excellence in Law Teaching to document ongoing reform and to support teaching and curriculum enhancement.  ( see www.teachinglawstudents.com and click on Albany Law Initiatives or go straight to http://www.albanylaw.edu/sub.php?navigation_id=1717 ).

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Catalysts For Change | 4 Comments »

On-Line Discussion Boards Create a New Arena for Engaged Learning Environments

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Patty Salkin

What’s better than the Socratic Method to engage all students in a course?  On-line discussion boards.

One of the challenges in creating the virtual classroom is to strive for students to substitute time that would have been spent sitting in a seat in an actual classroom for time spent engaged in the discussion on-line.  In addition to viewing short slide presentations with audio, and participating in occasional other on-line instruction (for example, this week the students were registered for and participated in a 45 minute on-line ethics training program developed by the NYS Commission on Public Integrity; and they were registered for a one hour ALI-ABA teleconference on the attorney-client privilege), the remainder of our instruction hours for the week are spent on the discussion boards.

So far I have opted to post three questions per week, and I have required the students to respond to at least two of the three questions, and then post replies to at two postings made by their colleagues (requiring 4 postings in total).  With 22 students enrolled in the course, it would be near impossible in a seminar of this size to actively engage every student in every class hour.  With the on-line discussion board, however, each and every student is an engaged learner who must participate in the class discussion.  In other words, no one gets a “bye” for the weekly class reading, and everyone must learn to be reflective, analytical and articulate in the written postings they make to the discussion boards.  Not only do I read the postings, but every class member reads the postings as well.  By week two, I realized the power of the discussion boards.

The two discussions I opened were:

1)    Based on Chapter 2, it is fair to conclude that defining exactly “who” is the client of the government lawyer is a difficult and challenging task, yet one that it is extremely important (at least in terms of confidentiality of communications which we will discuss in another posting).  Please respond for making a case that one of the following should be appropriately viewed as the client of the General Counsel to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and explain why: 1) The Governor; 2) The Commissioner of DEC; 3) The Counsel to the Governor; 4) A high ranking official within the agency other than the Commissioner; 5) Anyone in the Agency who sits down for a conversation with the Agency Counsel; 6) The public; or 7) Other (be specific). Is your answer the same if the attorney is not the DEC General Counsel, but rather an Assistant Counsel who reports to a deputy counsel who reports to the general counsel?  What if you work in the attorney general’s office and your job, according to the New York Executive Law, is to represent the State?

2)    From reading both Chapter 12 and the article in the folder for week 2, it is apparent that the federal courts are in conflict as to whether a government attorney-client privilege exists. This is an issue that will likely get before the U.S. Supreme Court some day. Please explain why you believe there should or should not be an attorney-client privilege. Your answer may consider the following: Does it matter whether the underlying conversations and litigation involve civil or criminal matters? If a privilege exists, does it belong to the government official or some other office/agency in government? What type of legal and regulatory arguments can you make to support your policy position?

These questions were directed, yet open ended enough to allow students to craft carefully thought-out responses and to challenge and engage students with differing perspectives and interpretations.  In the classroom, students may have responded with short answers in a sentence or two and full explanations may have had to be painstakingly extracted. Using the on-line forum, however, I received outstanding responses that demonstrated students did the reading, applied the applicable laws and policies, and considered the legal and policy challenges in reaching conclusions.  Their responses ranged from one full paragraph to four or five paragraphs.

In short, the discussion boards are proving to be an excellent teaching tool.  

Patty Salkin, Albany Law School

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Teaching Methodology | Tagged: , | 7 Comments »

“I’d like to thank the Academy…”: Using Movies in the Law School Classroom

Posted on January 22, 2010 by Justin Myers

The conversation that follows reminds me that when we, those supportive of the Best Practice model, use words like “innovation” and “engagement,” what we really mean is effective innovation and efficient engagement. When venturing away from the traditional delivery methods in the name of engagement and innovation, the most effective and efficient delivery methods must be accompanied by clearly articulated educational goals.

On a Tuesday afternoon, early in the new semester, Professor Hillary Farber posted a short and direct question to the Law Clinic Listserv. She asked, “Does anyone have any good discussion questions for this film [12 Angry Men] you would be willing to share?

 These are the responses that were shared:
(please feel free to add your own comments) Read more »

Filed under: Teaching Methodology, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Course Design – Technology Meets Substance in On-Line Curriculum Development

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Patty Salkin

After setting course learning outcomes for the on-line government ethics course, I had to revise my syllabus to better match my goals and desired outcomes mindful of the on-line format, and I had to develop creative strategies for creating a vibrant virtual discussion that would satisfactorily create a functional equivalent of an in-person classroom discussion.

To be honest, this was easier than I thought it would be using the functionality of TWEN.  I selected one soft cover book as the course text, and have supplemented that with readings mostly available on-line or in the public domain that are posted to the course site in weekly course resource folders.

I typically require students to complete assignments in my courses, and I wanted to find a way that these tasks could add to the vibrancy of the course by being shared with all  participants rather than being e-mailed only to me using the TWEN assignment drop-box. At the end of December, TWEN added a Wiki function to the site, and this was the perfect opportunity.  Each student was asked to sign-up for one state that they will follow through the semester.  I set up a series of Wikis where students will be posting short narratives and links to statutes, regulations and opinions from their state about subject matters we will be studying that particular week.  All of the states the students selected appear on the Wiki page for a given week, and each student accesses the Wiki and inputs the information for their state. So, for example, in week two, students have to merely find and post the on-line links to their state ethics commission, ethics laws and lobbying laws.  In week three, students will have to actually critically read and start to parse aspects of the state statutes in order to answer a series of questions about their state ethics commission.  The assignment reads as follows:

Using the state laws from the state you have selected for the semester (note: the following 10 states do NOT have ethics commissions – Arizona, Idaho, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming), please find the applicable provisions dealing with the composition of the state ethics commission. Under your state listing in this wiki, please answer the questions below:

1. How many people are on the commission (board)?
2. Who appoints the members of the commission (board)?
3. What is the term of office for members?
4. Are there criteria/qualifications/disqualifications for members?
5. Are there provisions for removal of members? How is the chair of the commission (board) selected?
7. Who appoints the executive director of the commission (board)?
8. Is the executive director appointed for a term?
9. Does the law provide for removal of the executive director?
10. Does the commission (board) have subpoena power?
11. Does the commission have jurisdiction over both executive and legislative branch officers and employees; municipal employees; lobbyists?

Provide the on-line link to the applicable provisions of state law that support your summary.

When completed, the class will have a 23-state comparative overview of the differences and similarities of state statutes on this topic which will be the basis of a question on our Discussion Board (I’ll write more about the Discussion Boards in a future posting).

For those interested, my colleague Darlene Cardillo, our Instructional Technologist at Albany Law School has posted a summary of week one of the course from a technology perspective on her blog here. The results of our pre-course student survey about their familiarity with on-line learning and with TWEN can be viewed here, you can read about the only in-person class, a one hour orientation here,.

Patty Salkin, Albany Law School

Filed under: Best Practices & Curriculum, Best Practices, Outcomes & Assessment Techniques, Teaching Methodology, Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

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